Foxton Beach Drop In Rally and Museum Visit

The Drop In Rally at Foxton School is organized by the Manawhenua NZMCA between Christmas and New Year and is always popular.

This is a ‘laid back” type of rally and people are free to come and go as they please.  Some stay just a few days, while others stay right through.   Bill and Val parked beside us, our awnings are together to give us a good bit of shade and shelter.  It’s interesting to note that at this rally the number of campervans far exceed the caravans.

At the Drop In Rally

Did you know there is a working Dutch windmill in Foxton?

And right next door is the Te Awahou Museum, which was showing an exhibition about Anne Frank.  We had planned to come and see it sometime, so this was the ideal opportunity, while we were staying in Foxton.

We all probably know the story of Anne Frank and her family, hiding from the Nazis in an attic  for a couple of years, and she recorded her day to day life in a diary.  What we didn’t realize was that this happened in occupied Holland, and not in Germany, as we had presumed.

The storyboards told how this all unfolded, how the Jewish family and a few friends went into hiding, and the workmates who kept them supplied with provisions.  Anne received a diary on her 13th birthday, and she wrote in this and various notebooks brought in by the helpers.  When Anne hears on the radio that diaries will be collected after the war, she decides to rewrite her diary in the hope it will be published.

Sadly, they were betrayed, and sent away to different camps in Germany.  Anne and her sister were sent to Bergen-Belsen and die of typhoid fever, and their mother Edith dies of deprivation and illness in Auschwitz.  Father Otto Frank is the only survivor of this little family, and was released when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Russian soldiers.  The diary and notebooks were kept safe by a friend and eventually returned to Otto Frank after the war ended.  This was a very moving exhibition.

After a coffee at the museum cafe to revive us, we drove down to the beach to check out the conditions.  The sky was grey and the sea was rough, but the Life Guards were on duty in case anyone ventured out.

Life Guards on duty

One little gull clinging on top of the pole in the wind

We will be here at Foxton for several more days, welcoming in the New Year.  That should be fun.  And then moving on to pastures new.